Wi-Fi tethering, which may also be referred to as a mobile hotspot, allows a mobile device to establish an Internet connection via a network interface and then share the Internet connection with other mobile devices via a Wi-Fi interface. For example, a Wi-Fi tethering device may connect to the Internet and then act as a mobile software access point (SoftAP) for the other devices located within a threshold distance from the Wi-Fi tethering device. The Wi-Fi tethering device may route data packets between the network interface and its Wi-Fi interface so that the other devices may use the Internet connection.
Wi-Fi tethering is desirable because it allows multiple devices to share one data plan with a service provider (e.g., a user pays for one device to have the capability to access the network and an Internet connection). Accordingly, the user(s) of the other devices do not have to establish and pay for a dedicated data plan for each of the other devices. Furthermore, Wi-Fi tethering may leverage mobile telephone data networks, which provide ubiquitous access to a network connection. Thus, a device without a dedicated data plan (e.g., mobile telephone network subscription) is able to access an Internet connection via the Wi-Fi tethering device that has a data plan in an area where no other Internet connections are available to the other device.
However, operating a mobile hotspot via Wi-Fi tethering significantly increases the power consumption of the Wi-Fi tethering device, and thereby reduces operation time when the Wi-Fi tethering device is powered by a battery. For example, when the Wi-Fi tethering device operates as a SoftAP and shares an Internet connection, the Wi-Fi interface of the Wi-Fi tethering device is always in a high power consumption state even when the Wi-Fi tethering device is not exchanging data packets with or routing data packets to the other devices (e.g., there is no data traffic being communicated through the Wi-Fi tethering device). This greatly reduces the energy stored in a power supply (e.g., battery) of the Wi-Fi tethering device.
Conventional approaches to saving power on a Wi-Fi tethering device may automatically turn off the Wi-Fi tethering interface of a Wi-Fi tethering device after it has been inactive for a period of several minutes. Moreover, the conventional approaches require a user to manually re-establish a Wi-Fi connection after the Wi-Fi tethering interface of the Wi-Fi tethering device is turned off, which results in a poor user experience.